Part 24

Between these two buildings stands the gate of an ancient house, communicating with the ruins of an edifice, the only remains of which is a large semi-circular vault, with neat decorations and four small niches in its interior; before it lie a heap of stones and broken columns. Over the gate of the house is the following inscription:

The natives have given to this house the name of Dar Boheiry, or the house of Boheiry. This Boheiry is a personage well known to the biographers of Mohammed, and many strange stories are related of him, by the Mohammedans, in honour of their Prophet, or by the eastern Christians, in derision of the Impostor. He is said to have been a rich Greek priest, settled at Boszra, and to have predicted the prophetic vocation of Mohammed, whom he saw when a boy passing with a caravan from Mekka to Damascus. Abou el Feradj, one of the earliest Arabic historians, relates this anecdote. According to the traditions of the Christians, he was a confidential counsellor of Mohammed, in the compilation of the Koran.

To the west of the abovementioned buildings stands the great mosque of Boszra, which is certainly coeval with the first aera of Mohammedanism, and is commonly ascribed to Omar el Khattab [Arabic]. Part of its roof has fallen in. On two sides of the square building runs a double row of columns, transported hither from the ruins of some Christian temple in the town. Those which are formed of the common Haouran stone are badly wrought in the coarse heavy style of the lower empire; but among them are sixteen fine variegated marble columns, distinguished both by the beauty of the material, and of the execution: fourteen are Corinthian, and two Ionic; they are each about sixteen or eighteen feet in height, of a single block, and well polished. Upon two of them standing opposite to each other are the two following inscriptions:

1. [Greek]

2. [Greek].

The walls of the mosque are covered with a coat of fine plaster, upon which were many Cufic inscriptions in bas-relief, running all round the wall, which was embellished also by numerous elegant Arabesque ornaments; a few traces of these, as well as of the inscriptions, still remain. The interior court-yard of the mosque is covered with the ruins of the roof, and with fragments of columns, among which I observed a broken shaft of an octagonal pillar, two feet in diameter; there are also several stones with Cufic inscriptions upon them.

Passing from the great mosque, southwards, we came to the principal ruin of Boszra, the remains of a temple, situated on the side of a long street, which runs across the whole town, and terminates at the western gate. Of this temple nothing remains but the back wall, with two pilasters, and a column, joined by its entablature to the main wall; they are all of the Corinthian order, and both capitals and architraves are richly adorned with sculpture. In the wall of the temple are three rows of niches, one over the other. Behind this is another wall, half ruined. In front of the temple, but

Upon a broken stone in a modern wall near this temple I read:

The ruin of the temple just described is in the upper part of the town, which slopes gently towards the west; not far from it, in descending the principal street, is a triumphal arch, almost entire, but presenting nothing very striking in its appearance, from the circumstance of the approach to it being choked with private houses, as is the case with all the public buildings in Boszra, except the church first mentioned. The arch consists of a high central arch, with two lower side arches; between these are Corinthian pilasters, with projecting bases for statues. On the inside of the arch were several large niches, now choked up by heaps of broken stones. On one of the pilasters is this inscription:

VLIO IVLIA . . . . . NAR PRAEF LEG. p ARTHICAE . . . . . . PPIANAE DVCI DEVOTI S . MO . TREBICIVS CAVOINUS PRAEF ALAE NOV. EFIRME CATAPRACTO PHILIPPIAN . PRAEPOSITO OPTIMO

Upon a stone in the wall over the gate of a private house on the west side of the temple, was the following, upside down:

Over the gate of another house, in the same neighbourhood:

Among the ruins in the N.W. part of the town is an insulated mosque, and another stands near the above mentioned Deir Boheiry; in its court-yard is a stone covered with a long and beautiful Cufic inscription, which is well worth transporting to Europe; the characters being very small it would have required a whole day to copy it; it begins as follows:

Not far from the great mosque is another triumphal arch, of smaller dimensions than the former, but remarkable for the thickness of its walls: it forms the entrance to an arched passage, through which one of the principal streets passed: two Doric columns are standing before it.

In the eastern quarter of the town is a large Birket or reservoir, almost perfect, one hundred and ninety paces in length, one hundred and fifty three in breadth, and enclosed by a wall seven feet in thickness, built of large square stones; its depth maybe about twenty feet. A staircase leads down to the water, as the basin is never completely filled. This reservoir is a work of the Saracens; made for watering the pilgrim caravan to Mekka, which as late as the seventeenth century passed by Boszra. A branch of the Wady Zeid [See p. 105.]empties itself in winter into the Birket. On the south side it is flanked by a row of houses, by some public edifices, and a

Upon a broken stone, in the middle of the town, is the following inscription, in characters similar to those which I met with at Hebron, Kanouat, and Aaere.

I now quitted the precincts of the town, and just beyond the walls, on the S. side came to a large castle of Saracen origin, probably of the time of the Crusades: it is one of the best built castles in Syria, and is surrounded by a deep ditch. Its walls are very thick, and in the interior are alleys, dark vaults, subterraneous passages, &c. of the most solid construction. What distinguishes it from other Syrian castles, is that on the top of it there is a gallery of short pillars, on three sides, and on the fourth side are several niches in the wall, without any decorations; many of the pillars are still standing. The castle was garrisoned, at the time of my visit, by six Moggrebyns only. There is a well in the interior. I copied the following from a small altar-shaped stone lying on the ground within the castle:

The castle of Boszra is a most important post to protect the harvests of the Haouran against the hungry Bedouins; but it is much neglected by the Pashas of Damascus, and this year the

From a broken stone in the modern wall of a court-yard near the castle I copied the following letters:

In proceeding from the castle westwards, I arrived, in a quarter of an hour, at the western gate of the town, where the long street terminates. The gate is a fine arch, with niches on each side, in perfect preservation: the people of Boszra call it Bab el Haoua [Arabic], or the Wind gate, probably because the prevailing or summer breezes blow from that point. A broad paved causeway, of which some traces yet remain, led into the town; vestiges of the ancient pavement are also seen in many of the streets, with a paved footway on each side; but the streets are all narrow, just permitting a loaded camel to pass.

Near the Bab el Haoua are the springs above mentioned, called Ayoun el Merdj; with some remains of walls near them. The late Youssef Pasha of Damascus built here a small watch-tower, or barrack, for thirty men, to keep the hostile Arabs at a distance from the water. The town walls are almost perfect in this part, and the whole ground is covered with ruins, although there is no appearance of any large public building. Upon an altar near one of the springs was the following inscription:

ANTONIAE FORTVNATAE ANTONIVS. V . . CES CONIVGI PIISIMAE

In going northward from the springs, I passed the rivulet Djeheir, whose source is at a short distance, within the precincts of the town. It issues from a stone basin, and was conducted anciently in a canal. Over it seems to have stood a small temple, to judge by the remains of several columns that are lying about. The source is full of small fish. Youssef Pasha built a barrack here also; but it was destroyed by the Wahabi who made an incursion into the Haouran in 1810, headed by their chief Ibn Saoud, who encamped for two days near this spot, without being able to take the castle, though garrisoned by only seven Moggrebyns. The banks of the Djeheir are a favourite encampment of the Bedouins, and especially of the Aeneze.

Beyond the town walls, and at some distance to the north of the Djeheir, stands the famous mosque El Mebrak; and near it is the cemetery of the town. Ibn Affan, who first collected the scattered leaves of the Koran into a book, relates that when Othman, in coming from the Hedjaz, approached the neighbourhood of Boszra with his army, he orderd his people to build a mosque on the spot where the camel which bore the Koran should lie down; such was the origin of the mosque El Mebrak. [Mebrak [Arabic] means the spot where a camel couches down, or a halting-place.] It is of no great size; its interior was embellished, like that of the great mosque, with Cufic inscriptions, of which a few specimens yet remain over the Mehrab, or niche towards which the face of the Imam is turned in praying. The dome or Kubbe which covered its summit has been recently destroyed by the Wahabi.

The above description comprises all the principal antiquities of Boszra. A great number of pillars lie dispersed in all directions in the town; but I observed no remains of granite. Its immediate

Of the vineyards, for which Boszra was celebrated, even in the days of Moses, and which are commemorated by the Greek medals of [Greek], not a vestige remains. There is scarcely a tree in the neighbourhood of the town, and the twelve or fifteen families who now inhabit it cultivate nothing but wheat, barley, horse-beans, and a little Dhourra. A number of fine rose trees grow wild among the ruins of the town, and were just beginning to open their buds.

April 28th.--I was greatly annoyed during my stay at Boszra, by the curiosity of the Aeneze, who were continually passing through the place. It had been my wish to visit the ruined city of Om El Djemal [Arabic], which is eight hours distant from Boszra, to the S.; but the demands of the Arabs for conducting me thither were so exorbitant, exceeding even the sum which I had thought necessary to bring with me from Damascus to defray the expenses of my whole journey, that I was obliged to return to Aaere towards mid-day, after having offered thirty piastres for a guide, which no one would accept. None but Aeneze could have served me, and with them there was no reasoning; they believed that I was going in search of treasure, and that I should willingly give any sum to reach the spot where it was hid.

April 29th.--I took leave of my worthy friend Shybely, who would not let us depart alone, but engaged a Bedouin to accompany us towards the western parts of the Haouran; this man was a Bedouin of Sayd, or Upper Egypt, of the tribe of Khelafye, who inhabit to the west of Girge; he had entered the service of the Mamelouks, and had been with one of them to Mekka, from whence he returned to Damascus, where he entered into the Pasha's cavalry; here he had the misfortune to kill one of his comrades, which